Border Tart

Among the things I did over the last couple months which I meant to blog about, but never got around to, was the celebration I had for White Rose Day. I bought white roses for my table, broke my fast on tea and scones, with clotted cream. (The clotted cream was a huge treat. I had only ever eaten it in Scotland, because I could not find it here. But it turned up on the shelves of the local Grocery Outlet, and I pounced on it with glee and jubilation.) For dinner, I cooked up a bit of haggis, neeps, tatties, and a wee bit of steak in case the company I invited (in this case, my brother and several sisters.) did not enjoy the great chieftain o' the puddin' race. Fortunately, most of them like it quite well, and those who were not crazy about it, did not dislike it, and so it was eaten entirely. We finished with the customary toast to the King Over the Water - a neat little ceremony. One simply raises one's glass, says, "To the King!" and passes the glass over a cup of water before taking a sip from it. It was a lovely day.

For dessert, there was a border tart. I got the recipe out of a really beautiful cookbook which I received a couple years back, for Christmas. Scottish Heritage Food and Cooking it is called, a beautiful book, full of pictures. Some of the recipes are a bit hoity-toity (and one calls for avocado which is most emphatically not Scottish.) Still, there are a sufficient number of quite manageable dishes, so I have enjoyed trying my hand at the occasional recipe. It is this book right here:

THE RECIPE:

The Auld Alliance crust is probably the best and easiest pie crust recipe I have ever come across: Cream together 10 tbsp butter and 1/4 cup sugar. Add 2 cups flour and 1 egg. Mix until just combined - do not over-work the dough. Be lazy with it! Chill dough until ready to use. It is light, flaky, and very tasty. I shall never use another pie crust recipe again. 

I did make a few changes to the filling. I could not find currents anywhere. Perhaps I am looking in all the wrong places. Perhaps there just is not a great demand for currants in my neck of the woods. I used raisin instead, and it tasted just dandy. Even the sister who does not like raisin agreed that they are good in this recipe. And, for some reason, I had an excess of almonds when I set out a-baking, so there were almonds as well as walnuts in the tart. 

Here I am, setting the tart out to cool. Yes, I really am wearing an apron that looks like a kilt with a sporran and Prince Charlie Jacket. It was the gift of a cousin who knows me well. The sporran is actually a pocket.

And here we have the finished tart, in all its glory. It tasted as good as it looks, and it is so very easy to make:

As a side note: this is also a very versatile recipe. You may use just about any sort of nut and dried fruit mixture that strikes your fancy, and it still turns out quite nicely. I know. I've been experimenting. It is wonderful when it is still warm from the oven, and it is also very nice the next day, taken cold. It is the ideal dish to take to a dinner or a pot luck, because it looks like farm more work than it is :-)

St. Patrick's Day Was Yesterday....

And I made my usual big deal over it.

I dressed eccentrically, in saffron and green.

I wore the paper shamrocks from last year in my hair.

I ate an incredible corned beef and cabbage for dinner, over at my parent's house, in the company of all my immediate family, a couple nieces, and our good friends from up the road.

I partook of my sister, Amanda's, incredible dark chocolate Guinness cake. (The Guinness cooks out, leaving just a rich, intense chocolate flavour behind.) It was wonderful.

This year, however, I did something a little different from usual. The the holiday fell on a Sunday, which is one of my days off, so I had a whole day to celebrate! Therefore, I started the day off right, by making an Irish Breakfast for myself and the sisters who happened to have spent the night. I set the table very prettily with my Book of Kells scarf, a potted shamrock, and a wee little statue of St. Patrick himself.

St. Patrick stands on a box containing a little bit of Connemara marble - a gift from a co-worker many long years ago. He used, once upon a time, to be holding a bishop's staff, but has been lost for a long while now.

The breakfast itself consisted of a bit of sausage, some Canadian bacon (since American bacon is nothing at all like the leaner, ham-like Irish stuff.) eggs, soda bread, fried tomatoes and Irish coffee... I have trouble with fried eggs, I know not why. They always taste beautiful, but seldom look so:

I like fried tomatoes with my breakfast. My sisters do not, so I was the only one who ate them. Usually, an Irish breakfast would have boasted white and black puddings as well. We had them not, partly because, so far as I know, there is no where in town to get them, and even if there were, the puddings are an acquired taste, and not one I think, that would have gone over well with the sisters. Sausage and bacon were quite sufficient of themselves, however, and were partaken of with great relish.

The soda bread was a bit heavier than I would have liked - next time I make it, I shall put in a touch more baking soda, and a little less flour. Still, eaten hot with butter and honey, as we had it, it was mighty tasty:

As you can see, I am quite good at making Irish Coffees, a skill I am rather proud of. The cream floats on top, you see, the way it is supposed to, so that there is a clear line between it and the black coffee. The first couple sips of it particularly - hot, sweet coffee, coming up through the cold, frothy cream - is so good:

It was an extremely satisfying meal indeed.

Gnocchi

Today, my family and I spent the day baking and cooking for Christmas - sugar cookies, snowballs, chocolate-covered pretzels, chocolate chip cookies, truffles, biscotti, pizzelles, until the fragrant smell of the baking, mixes with the savoury smell of the meat sauce I made for my part of Christmas dinner. We are a very tradition-minded family, and Christmas dinner menu is unalterable: gnocchi and ham. Gnocchi is a lesser-known pasta, made out of potato, with a bit of egg, olive oil and flour, kneaded out like bread, and cut into wee little dumplings. Does that sound complicated? It isn't really, and for proof, I present The Crazy Gnocchi Guy for your education and amusement.

We do not bother with the grater to roll out the gnocchi, as he does, and our meat sauce is a fantastic concoction, with chunks of pork and beef in it. Served over the gnocchi, and with a side bit of ham, and it is the very essence of festivity. We are quite smug about our Christmas dinner, and firmly believe that no one has such a dinner as we do!